Driver License Measure Clears First Hurdle

SACRAMENTO —  A vastly expanded bill that would enable approximately 2 million illegal immigrants to obtain a California driver’s license passed its first test in the Legislature on Tuesday despite warnings that it would play into the hands of enemy foreign agents.

Advocates of the bill, similar to legislation Gov. Gray Davis has vetoed twice, said it would make California highways safer because immigrants who now drive without licenses would undergo driver training, testing and presumably would purchase automobile insurance.

But unlike the legislation Davis rejected last year on the recommendations of Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and other law enforcement officials, the new version would not require applicants to be in the process of seeking legal residency in the United States. Neither would they be subject to criminal background checks.

The inability of illegal immigrants to get driver’s licenses has become a major issue in California’s Latino community. During the last three years, demonstrations have been held in support of the bills.

Sen. Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), who carried the previous bills, said he believes Davis will approve his proposal this time because of what he called changed circumstances and because it would provide an extra measure of security for California.

“I think the governor should recognize that and will recognize that,” Cedillo told reporters after his bill, SB 60, was approved on a party-line, 7-3 vote of the Democratic-dominated Senate Transportation Committee. It will next go to the Appropriations Committee for another hearing.

Cedillo told the committee that there was no evidence of any connection between licensing illegal residents to drive and acts of terrorism by foreigners. But he said that recording the thumbprint, photograph and address of all license applicants would provide important documentation that motorists are who they claim to be.

“It’s a sense of greater security to know who people are in our community,” Cedillo said.

It seemed clear, however, that the bill fell far short of meeting Davis’ requirements for a signature. In remarks on Monday, the governor said he would be happy to sign a bill that enabled illegal immigrants to drive, but that it must include restrictions he demanded last year when he vetoed a proposed compromise.

Among other things, Davis insisted that the legislation contain a requirement that the applicant must prove he or she is employed and is contributing to the economy.

Davis also faulted the Legislature for failing to provide common-sense protections against criminals obtaining a driver’s license.

The new bill contains neither provision. It also does not contain a requirement in last year’s bill that illegal immigrants who applied for a driver’s license must also be in the process of becoming a U.S. citizen or seeking legal status in this country.

Cedillo suggested that changed circumstances, such as the war against Iraq, have made such requirements unnecessary. Those provisions also were opposed by advocates for illegal immigrants.

Cedillo estimated that the measure would apply to as many as 2 million undocumented immigrants.

He said the law should recognize this fact and provide licenses to illegal workers, whom he described as the backbone of the agriculture, hotel, services and construction industries.

In addition to a variety of immigration rights advocates, the bill also drew support from organized labor, including the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. More than two dozen witnesses endorsed the proposal.

But it also encountered fierce opposition from a handful of opponents, including Rick Oltman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

He said the state has no business giving to illegal immigrants a document that is reserved for lawful residents.

He also charged that the bill contained loopholes that would allow “enemy agents” and “criminals and terrorists to get a California driver license.”

Another witness, Yeh Ling-Ling of Oakland, executive director of a group called the Diversity Alliance for a Sustainable America, claimed that providing illegal immigrants with a driver’s license would encourage more illegal immigration, which she said had cost California taxpayers billions of dollars in education, health and prison costs.

Yeh finished her testimony and left the hearing room. At that point, several members of the committee made it clear that they disagreed with her.

State Sen. Nell Soto (D-Pomona) denounced the testimony as blatantly racist.